Somanātha and other mediaeval temples in Kāṭhiāwād / by Henry Cousens, M.R.A.S., late superintendent, Archaeological Survey of India, Western circle.

  • Henry Cousens
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Somanātha and other mediaeval temples in Kāṭhiāwād / by Henry Cousens, M.R.A.S., late superintendent, Archaeological Survey of India, Western circle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tioned by bis chroniclers ; for, although he thus made gifts to Jaina religious establishments, still “ his pilgrimages to the shrine of Someshwur and his resto¬ ration of the temple at Shreesthul [Siddhapur] prove that Sidh Raj professed the orthodox faith, but none of the traditions which relate to him speaks of any zealous attachment to his religion.” 1 Mention is made of the fact that, early in his reign, his mother, Mainal Devi, procured from him the remission of a tax levied at a ford of the Narmada river, not far from Broach, upon pil¬ grims journeying to Somanatha.2 His chroniclers tell us that “ great were the palaces, great the reservoirs, great the temples, great the resorts of pilgrims that Sidh Raj caused to be constructed.” Not having a son to succeed him, he did what others have done in similar circumstances—left his works to per¬ petuate his name—and these he is said to have strewn with a liberal hand over Sorath and Gujarat in the shape of “ sumptuous edifices and reservoirs, whose ruins still remaining, excite the wonder of the rustic, and the admiration of the student of ancient history.”3 4 Between that time and A.D. 1169, the temple, it would seem, again came to grief, or had been suffered to fall into ruin, for it is in that year that the re¬ cord of its reconstruction by Kumarapala, who succeeded Siddharaja upon the throne of Gujarat, is dated in the inscription still extant in the little temple of Bhadra Kali at Somanatha-Pattan, which is supposed to have originally been set up in the temple of Somanatha. It is related in the Prabandha ChintdmanP that Kumarapala asked his confidential minister, Hemachandra, what he should do to gain everlasting fame, whereupon the latter, wishing to keep on good terms with the king, and with a view to further favours to come, although him¬ self a Jaina, advised him to restore the wooden prasada (shrine or temple) of Somesvara which was almost totally destroyed by the spray of the ocean beating upon it. From this it would appear that the temple built by Bhima Deva was partly, if not wholly, constructed of wood—possibly upon a stone founda¬ tion, part of which we see in the walls. Or, it may have been a temporary structure erected as a repair of that temple. This restoration is also men¬ tioned in the Dvaidshardya, a work which appears to have been commenced by Hemachandra, or Hemacharya, and continued, on his death, and completed by a Jaina monk in A.D. 1255. The inscription in the temple of Bhadra Kali records that Brihaspati, the ganda or temple priest, after singing his own praises and claiming to be an incarnation of Siva’s attendant Nandlsvara, born at Benares for the express purpose of reconstructing the temple of Somanatha, arrived at the court of Jayasirhha, before that king died. On the accession of Kumarapala he pressed upon the new sovereign the necessity of restoring the ruined fane of Somanatha. This rather contradicts the previous account in the Prabandha Chintamani which gives Hemachandra the credit of calling the king’s attention to this work. However, we are told in this inscription that 1 Bas Mala, I, 174. 2 Bas Mala, I, 110, a^id Journ. Bom. Br. B. A. S. VIII, 58. 3 Bas Mala, I, 178. 4 The Prabandha Chintamani was written by Merutnnga Acharya, a Jaina monk, at Wadhwan, and completed in A. D. 1305.